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PITTA GURNEYI, //«*. 



Gurney's Pitta. 



Pitta gurneyi, Hume, Stray Feathers, vol. iii. no. 4, p. 296. 

 Brachyurus gurneyi, Id. torn. cit. no. 6, pi. 3. 



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We are indebted to the pages of ' Stray Feathers ' for a knowledge of this new and magnificent Pitta ; and 

 I can readily conceive with what real pleasure Mr. Allan Hume took up his pen to write a description of so 

 interesting a bird. 



To myself, who have from the beginning of my career as an ornithologist been much attached to this 

 family, the discovery was especially welcome ; but how much was this feeling enhanced by Mr. Hume 

 presenting me with a fine pair (male and female adult) for my already, I may say, unique collection of this 

 beautiful family ! 



Not only is this bird entirely new, but it is an additional and fourth species of a small section of the 

 Pittidse whose coloration is most attractive and interesting. Mr. Hume having given a most careful descrip- 

 tion of both sexes of the Pitta gurneyi, and his reason for dedicating this new bird to his friend Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, I shall take the liberty to copy nearly verbatim what he has so well said: — "I dedicate this really lovely 

 species, an inhabitant of the most southern portions of the Tenasserim Provinces, to my kind friend Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, well known to all ornithologists as the first living authority where Raptorial birds are concerned. 



"No more beautiful or interesting addition to our Indian avifauna has been made for many a long day ; 

 and its discovery is one of the results of the systematic ornithological survey of the Tenasserim Provinces 

 which for the past two years has been vigorously prosecuted by my curator Mr. William Davison and my 



whole staff. 



" Though conspicuously different from any one of them, this new species is most nearly allied to P. cya- 

 nura, Gmel. {guaiana, P. L. S. Mull.), P. schwaneri, Temm., and P. boschi, S. Mull. (? elegans, Lesson). 



"There is the same cuneiform blue tail, the same comparatively small bill, the same more or less rufous 

 olivaceous upper surface, the same difference in the sexes, an orange-brown replacing on the head of the 

 female the more marked colours of that portion of the male. 



"While dealing with a species of this genus I take the opportunity of noting that in a recent livraison of 

 the Museum des Pays-Bas (dated April 1874) Professor Schlegel remarks of this genus, ' Ces oiseaux aux 

 habitudes parfaitement sedentaires et ne sachant guere voler, n'ont pas la faculte de se transporter dans 

 d'autres localites du lieu qui les a vu naitre.' 



"Now, as regards those species which I have had most opportunities of observing, viz. moluccensis and co- 

 ronata, these remarks are wholly erroneous. Both species are eminently migratory ; neither, at any rate 

 within our limits, are ever found at other seasons of the year anywhere in or near the localities in which they 

 breed. Both yearly travel hundreds of miles to their breeding-haunts, streaming up in tens of thousands of 

 pairs, all moving at about the same time, though not in flocks. As to coronata, Layard and Jerdon and 

 others. have recorded this years ago. As to cyanoptera, we have found this the case during the past two years 

 in Burmah : they come up from the Malay peninsula, and flood not only the Tenasserim Provinces, but the 

 valley of the Irrawady, some at any rate getting as high as Thayetmyo ; and in this migration they are 

 accompanied by the nearly allied but much larger-billed megarhynchus. Doria, too, I see, as quoted by 

 Salvadori (' Uccelli di Borneo,' p. 236), notices that in Borneo also they are migratory, no specimen having 

 been obtained at Sarawak before October (though not rare there in that month), November, and December." 



The Plate represents two males and a female, of the size of life. 



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